A machine tool of this kind, particularly a laser machine tool, is known from the machine tool Lasercell 1005 from Trumpf, Inc. A machine tool of this kind has a machining compartment which is surrounded by a protective housing. The protective housing contains at least one access region for the machining compartment, which is monitored. Arranged outside the protective housing is a main control panel which allows the machine tool to be controlled. This main control panel comprises a Teachpanel, which can be used to input both basic functions and auxiliary functions. Provided in decentralized fashion with respect to the main control panel, for the purposes of opening and closing protective doors, are individual control elements which comprise individual control keys in line with the assignment of the regions. For example, an automatic protective door for an access region is provided with a control key for opening the door, a control key for closing the door, a control key for operating a light in a protective housing, a control key for an emergency off function and a control key for acknowledging a loaded workpiece transporting apparatus in the machining compartment outside the protective housing.
Such machine tools are loaded and unloaded with workpieces by means of workpiece transporting apparatuses, the workpieces moving from the machining compartment through a separate access region out of a loading compartment outside the machine tool into the machining compartment inside the protective housing. This access region in turn has a further control element associated with it which, in contrast to the aforementioned control element, comprises other control keys.
These known control elements allow all the functions for controlling a machine tool. However, the machine operator needs to select a control key and operate a respective control element for each requisite work step at the location of the work step which is to be performed. This arrangement of the control elements requires a specific instruction on each control element on the basis of the state of the machine tool. Furthermore, the machine operator needs to initiate the individual control steps at the respective location of what is happening.